Hiroyoshi Yamamoto (born March 23, 1971), better known by his ring name Hiroyoshi Tenzan, is a Japanese professional wrestler who works for New Japan Pro-Wrestling. Besides a successful career as a singles wrestler, being a four-time IWGP Heavyweight Champion and a one-time NWA World Heavyweight Champion, Tenzan is known for his tag teams with Masahiro Chono and Satoshi Kojima, winning the IWGP Tag Team Championship five times with each one, which alonside one reign with Osamu Nishimura, makes Tenzan a record 11-time IWGP Tag Team Champion. With Kojima, in 2008, they also won the World's Strongest Tag Determination League in All Japan Pro Wrestling and the G1 Tag League in NJPW, becoming the only tag team which has done it; and the NWA World Tag Team Championship once.
"Anaconda Tropes":
- Animal Theme Naming: Of bulls and buffalos.
- Beleaguered Assistant: Much to his chagrin, he often ended being this to the worldly Masahiro Chono.
- Berserk Button: Don't say to his face that he is just Chono's henchman. He's got a huge inferiority complex about his role in the Cho-Ten tag team.
- Cool Mask: Wore a mask with bull horns.
- Face: It's an especially difficult labor to get fans to boo him, one that got harder and harder as the years passed and the fan base began to view him as a corner stone of New Japan.
- Finishing Move: Anaconda Vice and its variations, Anaconda Cross (combined with a straight jacket choke) and Anaconda Max (combined with a Cobra clutch), diving headbutt, moonsault, Original TTD – Original Tenzan Tombstone Driver (sitout cradle reverse piledriver), TTD – Tenzan Tombstone Driver (kneeling cradle reverse piledriver)
- Limit Break: He mainly uses the Anaconda Buster if his opponent, while being locked in the Anaconda Vice, tries to power out of it by standing up first. After dropping his opponent with the Buster, Tenzan re-applies the Vice again.
- Red Baron: "Moushi" ("Angry Bull"), "Western Buffalo".
- Signature Move: Anaconda Buster (Anaconda Vice sitout side slam), Buffalo Sleeper (arm-hook sleeper hold), Calf Branding (diving knee drop bulldog), Mountain Bomb, Tenzan Trip (rope-hung whiplash)
- Take That!: His Tenzan Trip to Rob Conway's Ego Trip after the two started a feud.
- Time to Unlock More True Potential:
- Trained boxing at the Kadoebi Gym to counter Naofumi Yamamoto. It became a point of friction with Chono, as he often pressed Tenzan to train it hard to keep their success.
- Innovated the Anaconda Vice after training MMA in the Los Angeles Inoki Dojo, and later improved it into the Anaconda Cross when wrestlers like Osamu Nishimura and Shinsuke Nakamura learned to counter the move.
- Ur-Example: First pro wrestler to use the Anaconda Vice (and Anaconda Cross, Max, Buster, etc.), the Buffalo Sleeper, and the Mountain Momb.
- Vitriolic Best Buds: He and Chono have turned on each other several times, but they usually come together after the dust clears.
